This left El very perplexed. As he had observed from childhood, the Sisters of the Church were strong. Not somewhat strong, they were very strong. He had seen them close giant wooden doors like it was nothing and he had seen them lifting buckets full of water as if it weighed nothing and yet he was not able to sense any kind of abnormality in their actions.

He assumed that there was something going on that gave them that much strength without every seeming to train their strength. It couldn’t have been technology, for the world had barely seemed to be in the medieval ages and they were using lamps for light. This baffled him. In fact, today had been the day he had been most excited about, as he had anticipated some magical event occurring, giving him some form of cheat ability or knowledge he could use but instead it was a disappointment.

Upon arriving at their room, El attempted to do some push-up and squats, hoping that some status screen would appear and tell him that he had gained a stat or that he had leveled up, but it never came. El, feeling frustrated, started to think about what this meant.

While he had anticipated that something magical would happen, it was not the end of the world if it did not. In fact, this made things a bit easier for El. His goal of not finding trouble and of living a normal life seemed more likely to happen than expected. If he did not have to worry about offending some young master and by default offending some great sect elder, or about killing the demon lord or forming a harem, he would be able to live a normal life. It seemed that he would be able to use his knowledge of science and engineering to make a lot of money and live a peaceful life.

El passed the day by studying some more and doing his chores, impatient about having to wait for the next day to begin. He did not have much contact with the older children. In fact, they seemed to have already formed their own posse’s and he found Goras too immature to talk to every day even though they were the same age. El had noticed that in this world, there was hardly anything to do for entertainment.

The children in the church could only study, do chores and play with each other but amenities like libraries, pools and such did not seem to exist, let alone things like TV’s and phones. As a result of El not interacting with anyone else, he spent most of his time writing on the slate with charcoal sticks. The one book that the Church seemed to have was heavily monitored. It would only be taken out by the Sisters when it was time to teach the children after which it would immediately be locked up in a box and taken to Mother’s room. This lead El to conclude that paper was a precious commodity in this place.

At the end of the day, he went to sleep, excited about what the new world would bring.

The next morning, El and Goras donned on their new clothes and found the room that their initiation ceremony had taken place in.

When they arrived there, they noticed that the mother was already there. They hurried into the room and greeted mother “Good morning Mother”

She replied “Good Morning boys, sit down on the carpet. You have a lot of things to learn.”.

El and Goras found the carpet and hurriedly sat, excited about what they would learn. After they had sat down the Mother began. “El. Goras. Today marks the beginning of your lives. You were children until today but now you have gained the right to learn about the world.” El and Goras sat eagerly awaiting new knowledge as the Mother continued.

“You were not allowed to leave the church until today because the world outside is very dangerous. You may have noticed; the Sisters are able to open heavy doors and lift heavy objects without much effort. This is due to magic” She said. After stopping for a few seconds to let the boys think, she continued “There are two different types of magic in this world.”

“The first type of magic is called inner mana. This is magic that cannot be controlled by most people. As people live their lives and perform certain deeds. They gain bits of mana. This allows people to level. Any action performed by people generates mana, and when they have generated enough mana, they tend to gain skills and spells. This has been labeled as leveling up. Every level up grants a skill. These skills can be anything from cleaning to weapon wielding. It has been found that every sentient being, including animals are able to gain these skills. Animals that have received skills are called beasts. However, skills are limited in that they usually only improve the knowledge/actions that are already achievable, to an extreme level. Things like moving things with your mind would be skills. Some lucky people have even gotten teleportation as their skill, but it requires knowledge and/or want of that subject. Your skills will improve with time, depending on how often and how well you utilize it.”.

“The tenth level up grants two thing. The first thing people get is a spell.” Hearing this, El was very excited. He had expected that there was some sort of magic/leveling system in this place, but it had been almost impossible for his to find any information on it. In fact, there was no talk in the Church at all about magic, and the Sisters would not answer any questions about magic.

“the second thing people get at level 10 is a class”. “Unlike a skill, a spell can allow you to do things that are not possible with just training the body. An example would be like summoning beasts”.

As the Mother finished her lecture, she asked, “Do you have any questions?”.

El had a lot of questions, but he did not want to ask too many so as not to draw attention to himself. He said, “What is the second type of magic?”. The Mother smiled and said, “That is not something you need to know now. If you show talent, you will learn about it at the Academy.”. El was able to glean some more information off of her response. It seemed that only the talented would be able to learn more about magic. At the end, the mother concluded by saying, “A master magician will be arriving in two weeks’ time to unblock your mana. You will learn everything than.” As the mother finished talking, El and Goras exited the room.

Being only five, there was not much El could do, and he had just been told that he would not be able to actively gather mana until it was unblocked. This put a damper on his plans. Nevertheless, he was excited about what magic would bring to his new life. This news, however, was also distressing. If there had been no magic, the world would have been similar to his previous world and he could be sure that safety would not be too much of an issue if he became rich in this world. However, having magic and power that could potentially level entire cities added an element that could not be ignored.

El would have to be careful in the way he did things, as he could not just go about as a child inventing random things. It would undoubtedly be a bad idea to do that. He would first need to gather power, whether personal or through allies, and only then would he be able to continue. This, however, did not worry him too much. His goal was not to be famous, nor he did not want to go galivanting as a hero. He would be fine with a quiet life in the countryside.

There were of course, challenges to that as well. The fact that there were beasts and monsters, and Mother had made sure to differentiate between the two, meant that he would not be able to isolate himself fully from the world and that he would need to be close enough to civilization so he could get help if needed.

Thinking about all of this, El went about his days doing chores and finally helping out around the Church. He was finally allowed to wander the Church, and he was allowed to go outside the church compound as long as it was not too far.

At long last, two weeks had finally passed. A Sister found him and Goras in the room and told them that they were to bathe today so that they could be presented to the master magician tomorrow. El rushed out of the room without having to be told again, while Goras pulled a face that said he would rather die than have to take a bath. Especially in the chilly water. The Sister pulled a serious face and said, “or would you like to be dumped in the river?”. Hearing this, Goras pulled a sad face and hurried out of the room before the Sister could decide to actually carry out her threat. That day, El was hardly able to sleep, as his mind kept wandering, but he managed to finally drift off.